Nobody gave ’em a chance

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INDIANAPOLIS — Are the Patriots a collection of scrappy underdogs who hope to shock the world tonight with a victory over the New York Giants in Super Bowl XLVI?

They shouldn’t be. After all, their quarterback, Tom Brady, is one of the game’s all-time greats. Their coach, Bill Belichick, has been the smartest kid in the class for nearly three decades.

Receiver Wes Welker is wrapping up the finest year of his career.

And the goofy tight end, Rob Gronkowski, has made the leap from untested kid to marquee attraction.

But just as it became popular to say, “These are not your father’s Red Sox,” after Boston’s long-suffering baseball team finally won a World Series, let’s be clear about this: These are not your big brother’s Patriots.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, they have Brady and they have Belichick and they have Welker and they have Gronkowski. They were 13-3 during the regular season, making them the top seed in the AFC playoffs and earning a first-round playoff bye. Agreed.

But let’s remember that they were a measly 5-3 at one point and that they were picking people out of the line at the neighborhood Shaw’s and asking them to play defensive back.

Remember how, back in 1997, Bill Parcells left in a huff — actually it was about a minute-and-a-huff after the Pats lost to Green Bay in Super Bowl XXXI — because owner Robert Kraft wouldn’t let him shop for the groceries? Well, admit it: When this season’s Pats were 5-3, a lot of restless locals were complaining that maybe it was Bill Belichick who should no longer be allowed to shop for the groceries.

Yeah, Belichick & Co. did a really, really great job bringing in fresh, new talent for the 2011 season.

They thought it was a bargain to send a fifth-round draft pick to the Washington Redskins for 350-pound defensive end Albert Haynesworth.

Except that Haynesworth was a bigger bust than “Rick Perry for President.” He was shown the door in early November.

And then there is famous wide receiver Chad Ochocinco. He sends out a lot of tweets, but, alas, he doesn’t catch a lot of passes. He was supposed to be money in the bank. Instead, he’s been money down the drain.

But Ochocinco is little picture. So, too, is Haynesworth, though it’s not often that “little” and “Haynesworth” are used in the same sentence. This is the big picture: Bill Belichick really is a genius, because he has found a way to mesh all these mismatched pieces and practice-squad refugees into a team that glided through the regular season and into the playoffs.

But because they were 13-3, and because they demolished Tim Tebow and the Denver Broncos in the divisional round of the playoffs and they fended off the jittery, unprepared Baltimore Ravens in the AFC Championship Game, everyone just kind of assumes this is just another in a long line of Patriot Powerhouses.

They are not a powerhouse. These are not the Patriots who defeated the Carolina Panthers in Super Bowl XXXVIII. They are not the Patriots who, one year later, defeated the Philadelphia Eagles in Super Bowl XXXIX.

And, no, they are not the undefeated 2007 Patriots who lost to the New York Giants in Super Bowl XLII.

Those were powerhouses. They were teams that were supposed to win. And to compare these Patriots with those Patriots would be a big, big mistake.

True, the Pats somehow were installed as 3â€‰1â„2-point favorites for tonight’s Super Bowl. Yet all last week in Indianapolis, it was the Giants who puffed out their chests and talked all the trash, as though tonight’s game was just a steppingstone to next week’s ticker-tape parade in the Canyon of Champions.

Now we aren’t going to go overboard with this. If the Patriots do win tonight, they will not “shock the world” as the 2001 Pats did against the St. Louis Rams in Super Bowl XXXVI.

No, the Pats you’ll be watching tonight are not “scrappy.” And they aren’t out to strike a blow “for the little guy.”

But you know how jocks are always bellowing, “Nobody gave us a chance,” after a big victory? If the Pats win tonight, they will have earned the right to say that.

Because there was a time, not long ago, when nobody gave them a chance.